Movement Science Fellows: Learning to Teach About Discovery

Published in 1/1/2000

When
Associate Professor Andrew Gordon was an undergraduate student at
Hampshire College, the most valuable experiences he had in learning
were those that allowed him to actively explore the answers to his own
questions. Given that understanding, as a professor in Movement
Sciences, he routinely involves graduate students from the Department
of Biobehavioral Sciences in all of his research projects and brings
current research into his classroom.

Gordon wanted to offer
this experience to even more people. What better way than to bring the
learning and discovery process to science educators who are usually
required to learn about scientific content, but normally do not get
involved in actual research projects. Inspired by his memories as a
high school student doing "workbook recipe labs" for science that
"didn't require imagination," Gordon came up with a plan to change that
for some lucky students.

"TC has a strong science education
component," he explained. "I thought it would be interesting to form a
project with their program in which we take science education students
into our lab and we teach them about our research."

Gordon
received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to
implement his idea, and, in cooperation with O. Roger Anderson,
Professor of Natural Sciences, set up a fellowship for three science
education students per year. With matching support from Teachers
College and the Department of Scientific Foundations, the first group
of students was selected in September 1998.

One of those
students, Wendy Frazier, applied for the fellowship as a way to
understand science "in a more meaningful way than just learning about
it from a textbook." Frazier, whose goal is to teach pre-service
teachers at a college level, says the experience affected the way she
talks to future teachers about their lessons and in the way she
develops her own lessons. "The nature of science is to question and
test," Frazier said. "Before, I was trying to teach where they would do
all the same things and I knew what would happen. Now, I'm more willing
to do things with more unknowns and allow kids to discover and explore
things that are not planned."

In addition to completing a
one-year rotation in the Movement Science lab, fellows take two courses
related to the lab research. "Fellows will also work on a project with
me to study how sensory information is used for the control of hand
movement in healthy individuals, as well as individuals with physical
disabilities," Gordon said. Once they have completed their tenure, the
fellows are expected to share their research experiences with other
science education students and discuss ways to apply their experiences
to education.

This is the second year that the fellowship has
been awarded. Wendy Frazier and Evelyn Ericksson successfully completed
last year's fellowship. Frazier's participation in the research being
done by a postdoctoral fellow resulted in her being listed as a
co-author on a peer-reviewed publication.

This year, the
fellowship was awarded to three students: Karen Iverson, Robert Mirchin
and Nicole Pisano. Mirchin's participation in the program is
particularly meaningful. He is hoping to bridge work in movement
science and science education in order to develop science lab curricula
that will allow children with psychical handicaps to better
participate. Mirchin, himself, has hemiplegic cerebral palsy.

The
fact that a majority of TC students are women, and one-third are
minorities could also result in representatives of these groups, who
are traditionally underrepresented in science, participating in this
project. Gordon hopes the experience will serve to motivate the fellows
and the future teachers they work with to develop a curriculum exciting
enough to allow students to come up with their own questions about
science.